“Highway”… On the road

In a very funny moment in Imtiaz Ali’s Highway, Veera (Alia Bhatt) attempts an apology. She feels bad about snapping at Mahabir (Randeep Hooda), the man who’s abducted her and is now giving her a two-cent tour of the real India. She says she’s not usually like this, and that she’s tameezdaar, polite – and he barks at her. “Hum kya tameez dikhaane aaye hain?” But once we stop laughing, we realise that a fairly unusual thing has occurred. She hasn’t burst into petulant tears, the way rich brats do in the movies. Much later, we see why. We see that she comes from an impossibly upper-class (and yes, tameezdaar) family where her mother refers to her as “aap” and gently changes the subject whenever she begins to talk about something that’s not… proper. We see that it’s actually a relief, for her, to be around someone who’s normal, human, who raises his voice when angry. Veera’s claustrophobia at home is literalised as a medical condition; closed spaces make her sick. (Her NRI fiancé, on the other hand, is happy to remain in his car-cocoon even when he sees her in danger, as she steps out and falls in Mahabir’s path.) And this is why, after a point, Veera doesn’t try to escape. When they reach a settlement, she covers her face and lowers herself in her seat. When stopped by cops at a checkpoint, she hides. And later, when Mahabir literally hands her over to the police, she flees, as if she were the criminal.

In a way, she’s like Heer in Ali’s Rockstar, a rich girl who finds herself when she begins to hang around a guy from a lower social class. (There too, we saw someone stifled by all that tameez around her, preferring, instead, to watch soft-porn movies in a dingy – and potentially dangerous – cinema hall.) Highway is like a female-centric version of that earlier film, a be-careful-what-you-wish-for drama. Like the protagonist of that film who wanted pain, Veera wants freedom and open spaces. She wants a house in the mountains, where she’ll cook and where her husband will graze sheep. And when Mahabir kidnaps her, she gets her wish. We see them progress from hemmed-in roads in the city to the open mountains, and we see Veera progress from the back of the truck (where she’s tossed in, first; it’s a most interesting truck, with its inscriptions and its indicative painting of a lion pouncing on a deer) to the front and, finally, to the top of a bus. She’s free. She’s been “cured” of her claustrophobia by this lower-class man, just as Heer, for a while, was “cured” of her mystery ailment by the presence of her lower-class man.

But unlike Rockstar, Highway isn’t a love story. At parts, it certainly looks like one. On top of that bus, when Mahabir throws his blanket around Veera and she leans against him, they do look like lovers. And they looked like lovers while inside the bus as well, when her knee grazed against his, and she fell back in her seat, relieved that he hadn’t abandoned her. And before that too, we could have made the case that this is love. When she finds him after he has run away from her, she tells him that he cannot be making decisions for “them” all by himself. And he smiles, for the first time. It looks like relief, that she’s found her way back to him. The “them” sounds like her admission that they are a couple. It looks, also, like destiny – however much he tries to break free, they’re meant to be together. Or some such thing.

But this isn’t just man-woman love, instigated by the Stockholm syndrome. Veera tells Mahabir, in no uncertain terms, that she doesn’t want to marry him or bear his children. She just wants to experience freedom, with him by her side. (In case we don’t get this, Ali has her say as much – needlessly.) As for Mahabir, he isn’t interested in Veera at all. She’s just a hostage, whom he threatens to fling into a kotha. But then, one night, while he’s having dinner, she begins to tell a horrible story, and he stops eating and looks at her. The next morning, she embraces him – very tentatively – and he puts his arm around her, very tentatively. He too has a horrible story from his past, one that involves people like her, rich people, but after hearing her story, the anger he’s been holding on to abates a little. He sees that at least this rich person is like him. The love between Veera and Mahabir is also the love between two scarred people (Hooda literally carries a scar, which slices through an eyebrow) who finally luck into someone like them.

More interestingly, the love here is also that of a mother for her son, of a father for his daughter. Veera baby-talks to Mahabir, the way a mother would respond to her son’s cuteness. She strokes his head when he sleeps, and she sings him a lullaby, making up itty-bitty staccato words to fit the tune she overheard him humming. (In contrast, the words sung by his mother, in the flashback featuring the lovely Sooha saha, are more free-flowing.) In some ways, Veera becomes the mother Mahabir has left behind, and he becomes the father she never had. When she runs away and returns after finding that she has nowhere to go in the desert, he instructs the members of his gang not to help her. “Apni marzi se bhaagi, apni marzi se bheetar jaayegi.” And the next morning, she asks for permission when she wants to step out. This disciplinarian aspect of a father is also brought out when he asks her to dress properly. But elsewhere, when she gaily climbs a tree, he watches with worry from below. And he buys her new clothes, which she parades before him. (She’s like a child in a fancy-dress competition, with every state presenting the opportunity for a different look.)

And in a stunning sequence towards the end, Veera and Mahabir take turns being the parent. They find a cottage in the mountains. She orders him to stay outside while she tidies up the place and makes lunch. He steps out, then returns and opens the door cautiously – and this scene of a woman keeping house, the sheer domesticity of it all, is too much to bear. He crumbles. Hooda is extraordinary here. (And how nice to finally see him in a big film, where his performance will be seen by many.) Mahabir steps in, steps out, steps in, steps out, torn between wanting to enter this world and knowing that it’s not really real, that it comes with an expiry date. He breaks down. She holds him. Shh… sab theek ho jayega. He cries out, Amma. She’s a mother consoling a distraught child. And then, when he carries her to bed, the act doesn’t carry a sexual charge – not even when she lies on top of him. She’s like a little girl sleeping on her daddy’s tummy.

Highway offers rich readings even if you don’t look at it as a love story. It could be a buddy movie – Veera and Mahabir are mismatched, at first; then she learns from him, he learns from her. It could be Veera’s story alone, a Bildungsroman about a young girl who, through an agent of change (Mahabir), is transformed. Or it could be seen, like Gravity, as the story of a woman whose past trauma is exorcised by a traumatic experience in the present. Bhatt is spectacular in the scene where she reveals what this trauma is – it’s as if all those suppressed screams which she talks about have congealed into this creature that’s burrowing its way out through her throat. Ali doesn’t lead up to this moment. We’re thrust into it. There’s no explanation, no why – Veera’s decision to speak up, here, is like her decision to hide at the checkpoint. When asked, then, why she didn’t make a run for it, she whispers to herself, “What’s wrong with me? What’s going on?” This confession is part of what’s going on. For the first time, she’s free to speak about the past, without being shushed, without the topic being changed by her mother.

Or you could see Highway as Mahabir’s story, with Veera as the agent of change, helping him understand that his assumptions are wrong and leading him towards peace, perhaps even salvation. The anger against the rich he’s held on to is ebbing away slowly. His protective layers are being stripped. At one point, he clasps his hands and literally pleads with her to leave him and go away, something that she should be doing, given that she is the hostage. Mahabir is the classic Ali hero. When the confused character played by Abhay Deol in Socha Na Tha is asked why he’s doing what he’s doing, he says, “Kyonki main kuch aur nahin kar sakta. Mere paas aur koi raasta nahin hai.” (The protagonist of Rockstar was similarly unable to leave Heer when her mother ordered him out. “Main nahin jaa paaoonga,” he said, simply.) Mahabir, too, has decided that this is his life, that he has no other options. If he hates the rich, he seems to hate himself more – when told by a gangster (who, in a touch that’s typically Ali, has a transgender partner) that he’ll die a dog’s death, Mahabir replies that he is a dog in any case, and that’s how he’ll die anyway. The one clichéd note in his character may be that he’s the principled bad guy, who looks away when he sees Veera’s bra strap, and protects her when a creepy gang member tries to feel her up (the supporting cast is just fantastic) – but then he couldn’t be any other way in Ali’s romanticised universe, where we’re asked to empathise with stalkers and misfits and people bereft of “common sense.” (That we willingly do so is a testament to the writer-director’s skills.) But other times, Mahabir stays true to character. When Veera, playing with Mahabir’s gun, remarks that the person being fired upon dies instantly, he replies that the person pulling the trigger also dies. In other words, Mahabir is already a dead man – he died the minute he killed his first victim. Could an anti-hero get any more romantic? Yes, he can, when his traumatic past is revealed to us, but not to Veera. Ali denies us the counter-scene where Veera is shocked by Mahabir’s revelation – she keeps asking him why he is the way he is, and he doesn’t reply. That’s how it should be. That’s how he would be.

Besides, logic – or its sibling, “realism” – has never been of interest to Ali. This is not the film for you if you’re the kind who wonders how a girl who knows so little about the non-air-conditioned India – entering a dilapidated building, she exclaims, “Kaise kaise jagah hain is country mein!” – finds her way back from the unforgiving desert. We’re not meant to worry about the cops on their trail, either. Ali doesn’t want to interrupt his romantic story with that procedural angle, which is casually (and rather brilliantly, I felt) tossed off in one concerted post-interval stretch, mirroring the similar documentary-like footage at the beginning of the film. Ali doesn’t want much plot in the way either. Highway is a film for those who loved the Ladakh portions of Dil Se, and wondered how much better things would have been if the rest of the narrative had been similarly untethered from what-next contrivances. (At midpoint, Veera says she doesn’t want to go back to where Mahabir brought her from and she doesn’t want to reach wherever he’s taking her to – she just wants to be on the road. Ali accedes to her wish for the most part. The feeling that we’re on a journey with no use for beginnings or ends is exhilarating.

But even to fans, Ali’s occasional tendency to overexplain can be exasperating. The closing portions, particularly, are utterly redundant. The film ends with the gunshot that echoes the gunshot that marked its beginning, when Veera first ran into Mahabir. (Both times, the sound is amplified by the silence.) She’s got the freedom she wanted, and thanks to her, he’s gotten a glimpse of what it would be like to meet his mother again, to visit that simpler world again. And that’s enough. Instead, we’re forced to listen to Veera musing that she was free outside and, now, back at home, she feels like she’s in jail – yap, yap, yap. We feel what Mahabir must have felt like, at first, when she just wouldn’t shut up. Even the closure she has, with respect to her past trauma, seems unnecessary, as she’s already kicked it out of her system. I am also not a fan of Ali’s tendency to close his films with kitschy greeting-card visuals. If it was the Rumi-quote image in Rockstar, we have, here, the young Veera and the young Mahabir in an Elysium covered by a rolling carpet of green, from which sprouts a solitary dandelion.

A lesser issue with the second half is that it has too many songs underlining the mental state of the protagonists. Some are indispensable – like Sooha saha (which features the gently disorienting editing we’ve come to associate with Ali, with Mahabir’s chronology slightly fudged, boy to infant to boy again). And the positioning of Patakha guddi is sensational. One scene, we see Veera’s mother fearing the worst, and the next, we cut to how much fun Veera is having, gulping down ganne ka ras and making pehelwan poses as the song soars in the background. Even the stretch with Wanna Mash Up? is fun. (The entire theatre burst out laughing when Mahabir’s gang member joined Veera in her uninhibited dance.) But did we really need Kahaan hoon playing over the confusion already etched on Veera’s face? We may not have minded this intrusion in another film, but the storytelling in Highway is exquisitely minimalist, with about five minutes of background music in total. (AR Rahman’s short, eerie bursts of sound are perfectly in sync with the slight surreality of the film.) The script and the performances provide the narrative tension through the long stretches of silence – and it’s an insult to the performers to have these editorialising lyrics playing in the background. As for Heera and Maahi ve, they seem to have been squeezed into the final reels just because Ali didn’t want to leave them out. But given what he’s achieved, you feel ungrateful for complaining. By the end, I felt I’d been on a bit of a journey myself, as if, after weeks of stale movies, the air in the cinema hall had suddenly become cleaner. It’s hard to explain but you’ll know what I mean if you remember the scene where Veera sees the river up in the mountains and is awestruck. Leaving Highway, I knew exactly what she felt.

” but then he couldn’t be any other way in Ali’s romanticised universe”

As a fan of his earlier films, I would have it no other way. But this romanticised universe is sandwiched between that very realism he tries to avoid in his films (the entire kidnap sequence is too close to reality.. this is Delhi after all.. a girl with her male companion.. helpless on a vehicle on the highway.. don’t go there Ali!) and out-of-place melodrama at the climax. It’s a film of three acts as opposed to the pre-interval, post-interval structure of his previous films but each act seems to belong to a different movie.

” if the rest of the narrative had been similarly untethered from what-next contrivances”

It isn’t really untethered from contrivances, is it? Ali adapted it from his telefilm, so he had the rigid outlines in place. The road-trip offered him a chance to improvise and colour within these rigid outlines as freely as possible but he is ultimately tripped by the need to stick to these outlines.

I should have probably started by saying I really, really liked the film but you can expect a favourite film-maker to get these things right, don’t you? 😀

“Highway is a film for those who loved the Ladakh portions of Dil Se ….”

That is a one line review,there and puts things into perspective!
Also nice to see ARR’s music inlaid into the movie made you applaud..a bit .Your music review-a few weeks ago- wasn’t as complimentary 😉

Your description of the scene inside the house, when she sleeps on his chest bought the scene alive! Wonderful prose, as always.

I have a certain theory/interpretation of the movie.

In the scene when she hides herself from the cops and she mutters ‘what is wrong with me, I should have let them see me and get back to my world’ , I think it is Ali’s invitation to us viewers as well. He seems to be telling us ‘if you are uncomfortable in going on a flight of fancy, leaving behind logic, then get off now. Else, if you are like Alia and want to live in a fairytale land, come aboard’. So, Alia represents the audience who go to the movies to lose themselves in an imaginary world. For whom the movie is an escape, as the journey is for Alia in this movie. And so when she says ‘I don’t know when/how this started, but I don’t want it to end’, she is speaking for every movie watcher who just wants the movies to go on forever so that he/she can be happily parked in an imaginary world.

In the stretches before and after the above scene, Hooda’s reactions were remarkably similar to that of the audience around me. Just as it would seem Alia would go on talking forever, Hooda would shout her down, much to the liking of those around me. In a sense Hooda is a reflection of a certain kind of new age audience who want their films to be grounded in reality and get fidgety when movies challenge you to inhibit a different world.

And then there is her family. In what could be a remarkable display of cheekiness, Ali equates Alia’s family with traditional, big banner Bollywood. Those who want to maintain the homogeneity of the movies and keep pushing home grown talent. At the risk of belittling the serious crime that is child abuse, the uncle could as well be the censor board who sometimes act as an extension of this traditional Bollywood and do not let the independent movies prosper. Even the characters are so soap-operatic. And then Alia says – ‘you warned me of the dangers of the outside world but never did you talk about how full of scum the family is’. Well played Imtiaz Ali!

The movie to me symbolized the struggle that movies, either fairytales or realistic cinema, face when compared to the more routine fare that Bollywood and the established movie houses throw up. And this movie is a hat tip to all those directors who have a different vision for Indian cinema. At this point, Imtiaz is leading the pack.

Nidhi: I don’t see it as a “kidnap sequence.” It’s more like she was in the way and she proved an easy way to escape. If she hadn’t been there when Mahabir and Co. charged out, they would have had to find another way to escape. In other words the kidnap wasn’t a premeditated one — more a spur-of-the-moment act. Of course, that doesn’t excuse it at all — just that it makes me see the whole thing less as a heinous crime.

this is Delhi after all.. a girl with her male companion.. helpless on a vehicle on the highway.. don’t go there Ali!)

I see what you’re saying, but for me the film didn’t go there at all…

And what I meant by that untethered thing was that at some point the film stops being about what’s happening outside and what will happen to them next and just lives in the moment. I love that kind of movie.

B.H.Harsh: I don’t know if I have an answer to your first question, but this review took me all Sunday morning to write.

Dee (@ainvincible): I don’t think it’s either. Just a prologue kind of thing…

Kutty: That was an absolutely fantastic reading of the film. I never looked at it that way. Thanks.

Brilliant post! I agree with ‘Ali’s occasional tendency to over-explain’ statement especially when we haven’t seen Ali’s characters getting into flashback mode in his earlier movies,But looking carefully, it seems more like an improvisation exercise on his earlier drafted characters on a larger canvas.When you give room for improvisation, you should be aware about its pitfalls as well.

He shows repeated shots of her gagged, crying, struggling inside the lorry, being groped by the creepy guy, Hooda dragging her by her hair. In Jab We Met, he briefly shows the threat Geet faces when she misses the train a second time but immediately cuts back to his world with Aditya’s “tune phir se train miss kar di?” We laugh and we are back in a trance. This is just too real, too cut-off from his kind of romance.

Sir this is perhaps one of the best reviews that you have ever written, if not the best.

It absolutely nailed everything i felt about the film. especially about that pre climactic randeep hooda breakdown sequence , man i had goosebumps and after a long time ,totally and completely liked the overall performances.
—————–SPOILERS———
As you said the supporting cast is terrific especially that amorous guy sidekick of hooda’s. His whole demeanor and that interrogation scene, ‘Aap itna poochenge, toh hum itna jawaab denge’ really cracked me up.
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I do beg to differ on this point ” Even the closure she has, with respect to the past trauma, seems unnecessary, as she’s already kicked it out of her system”
—————–SPOILERS———
I really cheered her in that scene and i really wanted her to confront her tormenter and expose him (the guy’s reaction is priceless as well and his casting also.) perhaps in an old fashioned way.it really gave her a opportunity to indulge in some bravura acting, when she really screams that scream that she couldnt at that time, maybe not necessary in the overall structure of the film , but it was mesmerizing to see her do it.
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I also felt that she becomes intimate with her kidnappers rather quickly especially after that harrowing scene in the desert.

BTW i dont know whether my eyes were betraying me, but i actually read a credit for ‘BODY LANGUAGE CONSULTANT’ and this is the first time i am seeing this. I never even know such a thing existed after all its an intricate part of an actor’s craft.Have they started using consultants for that too. Did you catch that one ?

Nidhi: The JWM comparison isn’t right, IMO. That was a feel-good film. This isn’t that kind of film at all. I would even say this is some sort of feel-bad film, because despite the mitigating romanticism overall, there’s no real chance at happiness for either character. I’m not condoning what the kidnappers did, just saying that they did it because they were forced to lug this girl around (as they knew they couldn’t ask for ransom etc.) rather than their desire to deliberately inflict harm, as in that other case. I know I’m not explaining this as well as I should. Hope you get what I’m trying to say.

MANK: I didn’t catch that, but I did catch the fact that in the opening credits, the lyricist’s name was spelt with a lower-case ‘k’ — “Irshad kamil,” when the first letters of all other names were in upper case, the way they should be (Anil Mehta, Resul Pookutty, etc.). It bugged me for a few minutes. I know, I know 🙂

I have seen the original short film made by Ali when it was aired! I liked it then. I wanted to watch the movie when I saw the first trailor! But this review, kind of scared me! It is LOVELY! I am scared to watch the movie now! What if it is not as you made me feel by reading it? 🙂 And I LOVE the part of Dil se which you are talking about here. Remember the scene where SRK tells her what he hates about Manisha and what he loves about her? I so want to watch it again!

I have always been exasperated by Imtiaz Ali ever since he did Jab We Met. Apart Socha Na Tha, I haven’t really enjoyed any of his films but Highway left me stunned. I felt that I grew along with the characters during their journey. It isn’t everyday that we get a film that makes us feel that. It would be very interesting if Highway does indeed become a commercial success as well. It deserves to be one.

Considering that I wasn’t really in awe of Highway’s soundtrack like the majority of people, I was sceptical about how the songs would fit in the movie. I really liked the usage of “Sooha Saha” and “Pathaka Guddi”. The bursts of background music bordering on chillwave-ambient is truly the takeaway for me from this Rahman musical.

Also, there is one other consistency with Rockstar in terms of the structure of the movie. Imtiaz seems to be using the interval as a kind of a mirror in his narration.

The scenes in the first half tend to repeat with variations (reversal of roles for instance). The first shots in both the halves are shot with a different documentary feel. In the first half, Alia chooses not to escape while Hooda is worried about losing her. In the second it is Hooda who chooses to be seen and not escape (in fact buys her a ticket). Even the scenes with the folk singers (there is one in each half, placed almost exactly at the same point). There were more but it skips my mind now.

Even Rockstar has those moments in the second half where he is doing the same things he did in the first half, but only with true intensity (setting a bath tub on fire vs dousing himself with water during a performance, faking drinking alcohol vs needing the alcohol to inspire his performances) and many more.

I kind of like this structure, because you kind of know what is coming and it therefore leaves you to admire the other aspects of the movie. Add to that those slightly longer pauses and camera lingering on the characters for the extra seconds, it allows your mind to wander just enough to appreciate the movie more.

As regards Alia Bhat’s performance, as you pointed out, she is extraordinary in the scene where she narrates the harrowing incidents from her childhood and also when she sitting alone on the rock in the river. And she comes off worse in the climax scene in the middle of all that screaming. One can only hope the other directors don’t get to her to ham horribly just because she has displayed some signs of good acting.

Being a huge fan of Imtiaz Ali that I am, I wished a few scenes could have played out in a better fashion. Let me share something that comes to my mind now. The pre-interval scene where Veera tells Mahabir of her childhood trauma in my opinion was riveting. I was buying it. Until they showed a shot of the kid Veera. That was unnecessary and felt a little manipulative. And they did that with Mahabir’s past too. And these kids come in the closing scene too. You do not expect these kind of elements in a movie made by Imtiaz who usually leaves a lot to our interpretation.

Also the plot was quite predictable. When Mahabir lets her escape, we know that she is going to come back; when the police searches the vehicle, we know she will be hidden; and from the beginning we know that Mahabir will die at the end. Though I found the plot predictable, I enjoyed the movie just because of the way these scenes play out, there is honesty and beauty in every scene that is uniquely Imtiaz’s and this is a film filled with a lot of such beautiful emotional moments. It could have been a great movie was what I was thinking when I was walking out the theatre.

Also on a lighter note, the closing shots where they showed the young Mahabir and Veera playing together reminded me of the shot from Inception where they show Cobb’s children playing. Did you feel any resemblance? 😀

MANK – Regarding body language consultants , guess it is used for roles which require physical differentiation like if the character has disabilities or has special needs to get the body language right. Am told Hollywood and Bollywood movies regularly use their services .. Black is one such movie

Felt the same as someone had mentioned above-easily the one of the best review you have ever written. Yes!! Thats because for the very first time I seem to agree with every single line you’ve written about the movie. Be it Veera’s out pour of her horrendous past while Bhati stops eating or the beautiful smile on Bhati’s face at the bus stand or the wonderful sequence of him entering the hut. Wow!! Spot on!! Felt exactly same!

And yeah!! Thanks for not referencing a Classic or World movie in this review which half of us would never even have heard of leave alone watching it.

BR, that’s exactly what I mean. The romanticism and the overall feel-badness feel a bit.. incompatible. It wasn’t so jarring in Rockstar for some reason, probably because nothing in that film was so visceral (her coma etc. are never in focus) but here.. Anyway, I hope you get what I’m trying to say. 🙂

When they’re lugging her around, we don’t know that their intentions are harmless. The way Ali shoots those scenes, I don’t know.. I understand she just got in the way but did Ali need to go all gritty on us, considering that he was going to settle for a much mellower kind of feel-badness for the rest of the film?

@S, thanx for that info, but it makes it even more perplexing right?, this isnt that kind of a film at all, unless Alia Bhatt needed them to make that transformation from SOY to this. 🙂

@Kutty, i too felt that mirror narrative trick, more here than there in the Rockstar. Also was this film shot digitally?.because that’s what i heard and if it was , then Anil mehta’s photography needs to be really commended, as it looks so natural and lifelike, totally immersing us in the proceedings.the usual accusation made against digital is that it looks very artificial.And why do you call her acting in the climax hammy?, i thought it suited situation well.

@Saihari :Thanks for not referencing a Classic or World movie in this review which half of us would never even have heard of leave alone watching it.

Interesting insight. I found the tone of this film so wavering that it somehow didn’t leave a big impact.However The two leads and some of the moments did leave an impression .Even though the leading lady is quite good when uninhibited, frightened or while baring open her soul there are just too many rough edges.Its an uneven performance. Hooda though is just perfect.

Superbly insightful review as usual. But you’ve erred in noting that Mahabir wants to throw her in the ‘Kotah’ and only later learns that she has been sexually assaulted in childhood. After he hears that aspect of her life from her, he still barks to his friend later “I will still throw her in the whorehouse!” and I remember thinking how cold-hearted he was, even after hearing Veera’s traumatic past, but I knew that he’ll eventually rescind his evil plan. True to your psychoanalytical perspicacity, you pointed out so many great points about this acutely etched story but I ,in my review, eschewed this discussion of specific story points due to spoiler alert concerns but now I realize that I can give a warning about particular passages and then hold forth on unearthing perceptive gold!

But the basic premise – the man kidnapping a girl, without knowing that she is a billionaire daughter – easily looks like taken from the movie ‘The Chase’, and then built on with routine Indianisation. You make it sound like the Indianisation here is different, though.. So, hopefully it will be a good watch..

To complete such a thorough review, here is the ORIGINAL Highway –
Episode 58 from Season 1 of RIshtey, telecast on 23 April 1999 :
(many of the interesting details from the original have been retained by Ali)

Now, ladies & gentlemen, Dr.Rangan needs no introduction to all of us at this esteemed infirmary; he will now kindly give us a few lines about the aforementioned TV episode.

I’d been intrigued by the trajectory of the Ali heroine. She’s been growing increasingly unattainable. Starting with being on the arranged marriage market and belonging to a disapproving family (“Socha na tha”), to being in love with someone else (“Jab we met”), to being very briefly married to someone else (“Love aaj kal”), to being married for a few years (not to mention dying; “Rockstar”). So when the promos of Highway began, I wondered A) what had occurred in Ali’s own romantic history that drives his need to repeatedly reunite with the proverbial one that got away, at least on screen, and B) how was he going to one-up Rockstar on that front? But from your review, it sounds to me like Highway is an entirely different animal, and now I’m actually looking forward to watching it.

@Rajesh Yes, the basic premise of a billionaire’s daughter being kidnapped is similar. But the similarities end there. The Chase is a by the numbers routine Hollywood film with the chase being a media circus, helicopters, explosions and a laughable, unbelievable ending. There is no chase in Highway and the material is original. But your jumping to conclusions without watching the movie and your lazy condescension is par for the course for a country that routinely and voluntarily bans books before reading them.

@Govardhan Giridass – As I said, I was going to watch it. And then I saw this post from a fellow blogger.

Its definitely not the basic premise, like I thought. I was still willing to watch it. Not sure now.

Copied and pasted from another blog —

Here are a whole bunch of damning similarities between Highway (2014) and the two-decade old Hollywood film The Chase (1994):

1. In both films, the basic backdrop, against which all other events happen, is the kidnapping of a young girl.

2. In both films, the kidnapping happens without intent, meaning that the crime is not planned.

3. In both films, the kidnapping happens as a result of another crime (in Highway while Mahabir is fleeing after attacking a gas-station and in The Chase when Jackson Hammond, a prison escapee, panics after the police question him about the car he’s stolen).

4. In both films, the kidnapping happens at a gas station.

5. In both films, the kidnapper is unaware he is snatching a girl from an extremely wealthy family.

6. In both films, the kidnapping is believed by outsiders to have been done for ransom though money is not the original intent.

7. In both films, the girl expresses feeling sick (car-sickness in The Chase and claustrophobia in Highway) and voices the urge to throw up (vomit).

8. In both films, the girl is shown puking in the early moments after the kidnapping.

9. In both films, the girl’s father is a billionaire.

10. In both films, the extraordinary wealth of the girl’s father is repeatedly highlighted by third parties (“She is Manek Tripathy’s daughter,” exclaim awed outsiders in Highway and Natalie’s status as “Dalton Voss’ daughter” comes up in The Chase in reverent tones at the police station).

11. In both films, the girl initially comes across as a normal teenager but as the movie progresses we sense that she is more than a bit of an oddball with some family issues troubling her.

12. In both films, the kidnapper is shown as a character you can actually like or at least empathize with.

13. In both films, there is a long road journey.

14. In both films, the road trip is as important, as interesting and as dramatic as the kidnapping (thanks to varied topography, folk singers in the desert, snowy mountains etc in Highway and the two hilarious cops in the pursuing car, the TV media circus, the chase and those two crazy whackos in the green monster truck in The Chase).

15. In both films, the girl’s attitude toward her situation and the kidnapper changes dramatically over the long road journey.

16. In both films, the girl develops deep love/affection/fondness for the guy.

17. In both films, the kidnapper offers the girl a chance to leave (in the second half of Highway and toward the end in The Chase).

18. In both films, the girl is unhappy with the kidnapper’s offer asking her to leave.

19. In both films, the girl seems dissatisfied with her wealthy family and indifferent to money.

20. In both films, the girl is shown to have a testy relationship with her mother/step-mother.

21. In both films, the kidnapper develops great affection/love for the girl.

22. In both films, the kidnapper is reckless and determined at the beginning but as time goes by becomes fatalistic and pessimistic about the final outcome.

23. In both films, the girl is shown in later stages to be mentally stronger and more resilient than her kidnapper about escaping from the cops.

24. In both films, there is a bloody shootout in the final moments.

25. In both films, the wealthy girl goes down a road less taken/rarely taken by one so rich.

26. In both films, the girl ultimately abandons her family.

Since the focus is mostly on the kidnapper Jackson Hammond (Charlie Sheen) in The Chase, the Bollywood knaves shifted the attention to the girl in Highway as an escape parachute from possible lawsuits while keeping a lot of other things constant.

Sir, if you think those similarities are not enough, then thats because of the great Indianisation. I do not find anything wrong with inspiration, but one should not present or claim an inspired stuff as another bla bla or what not. Or at least should have the courage to admit it in advance. Bollywood routinely do this (so do Malayalam movies nowadays) and boast about their ‘creations’

Please do not jump into some conclusions, without knowing anything about the other person Sir. I am one who is suffering, on a personal side, because of what the fascists did to Doniger’s book.

I believe, sending inspired movies for awards and film festivals is definitely not our future. Before this movie is considered for India’s oscar nomination or other awards, it is important we know that this is not original.

I don’t understand. All that link does is list out the tropes that are common to the whole man-kidnaps-girl and takes her on a ride genre. It’s like saying The Hunger Games is a rip-off of The Running Man. The costumes in THG might pay homage to the previous film, but just because there’s a gladiatorial show that’s also a media circus doesn’t mean they’re the exact same story.

The man-kidnaps-highborn-woman trope dates WAY back, to stuff like The Sheikh with its faux-interracial love story to the more recent Genelia-Riteish Deshmukh starrer whose name I always forget. The rich girl learning from a traumatic experience, the man going soft, the sense of WANTING to escape from a stifling life for both the victim and the kidnapper… these are just broad strokes. I don’t think boiling down the story of every film to its basic plot elements and saying – “Aha! That’s a rip-off!” – does anyone any good. It’s the sort of thinking that led many to rant about how Harry Potter was a rip-off of LOTR or some such nonsense.

Were there specific scenes or sequences that were directly lifted? Entire beat-for-beat portions? That’s the nitty-gritty, the stuff that really matters.

Which is not to say this ISN’T a rip-off. I just think that none of what Rajesh listed there (or the stuff that’s listed in that link) is actually indicative of a rip-off.

Actually the way I saw it, this wasn’t about plot at all. The plot is just a clothesline on which to hang a number of great moments.

Saihariharan: So a good review is one that concurs EXACTLY with your thoughts and doesn’t talk about other cinema that may have a bearing on this movie. Thanks, that’s good to know 🙂 And here I thought part of a critic’s job was also to open up those windows for the reader 🙂

Upnworld.com: No, he says the “kotha” thing once before the revelation and once after. I was referring to the earlier one. And both times, he was just saying it for effect. I don’t think that was part of his “evil plan” or anything.

Vanya: Nice set of points about the Ali heroine. I agree — I think there’s a one-that-got-away in Ali’s story!

auroravampiris: I was just going to write what you wrote. Most of the points in that laundry list are “genre” constructs in a road movie that’s about a mismatched couple, just like you can make a case that any rom-com about rich girl and poor boy has been plagiarised from some older Hollywood rom-com. I haven’t seen “The Chase,” and maybe there are similarities otherwise too, but from what that film sounds like — an action-heavy chase — this doesn’t sound like a plagiarisation. Heck, for that matter, you can make for Ali being inspired by “It Happened One Night,” which is again a road movie about rich girl and poor guy, or “Pierrot Le Fou,” a road movie that shows rich people as bad people. Will have to see “The Chase” and find out what the deal is 🙂

– And I was just going to mention “It Happened One Night” but you beat me to it.

Some tantalising discussion happening here, I must say. Tantalising only because I haven’t yet seen the film and am trying to avoid spoilers if I can. I will say though that while before I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to watch Highway while it was still playing in the theaters, the bits of this review and discussion I have let myself read have made me want to try and get to it ASAP. Still that won’t be till the weekend most likely, so I hope you folks won’t exhaust all topics of conversation before then.

@Aurora
That’s bang on. i have seen both Chase and highway and while watching highway , the chase didnt come to my mind at all. At the most what i felt was it had more resonance with jab we met, except that this perhaps more grittier version of that and more poetic and romantic.The chase is nothing more than a potboiler B movie . A film is not identified with its basic storyline, it very much depends on its mood , texture, fine detailing and characterization which here is miles away from the chase.I think there is a tendency in our country on websites to rip apart anything new and make it appear as everything is a copy of something of the other(which is true, i really dont believe that anything is 100% original in art). The best example is Sarkar , which is always blamed as a rip off\copy of Godfather.RGV had admitted beforehand that he is making an adaptation of Godfather. If you watch the films, none of them are alike except the basic storyline of the don and his sons and transfer of power etc.The godfather is a sprawling melodramatic epic.while sarkar is more of a mood piece much more smaller in scope and scale. ,devoid of melodrama.It does not have a single scene directly lifted from the Godfather, yet people are always hell bend on going on and on about it.In that case you could make a case for Godfather being lifted from King Lear and RichardIII,Its very much a film that stands on its own even as it keeps the essence of the original.That is very much true of Highway as well.If watching The chase sparked in him a idea to make something like this beautiful, and esoteric , then more power to him i say. He is a genuinely talented,gifted filmmaker and he’s not to be included among hacks who are dime and dozen in the ind. .

Rajesh’s intentions are genuine and i dont blame him for putting this out , and i think he was only directly quoting from another website.It would have been better if he had seen the film and then made an opinion.

“The plot is just a clothesline on which to hang a number of great moments.”

Man , you absolutely love this phrase dont you, you have already used this an umpteen number of times in posts and comments. Any special reasons? or just something that deeply resonates with your day to day life 🙂

No wonder, our modern directors continue with this inspiration business without any shame.

Well, we should then wait for movies, which are exactly scene by scene copies to call them copies. We have great ‘CREATORS’ here in our movie industry then, dont we.

(Kerala Govt. even gave a state award to one such ‘creation’ recently – Pranayam. Another is strongly rumoured to be in the run for 2013 awards – Amen)

It was a mistake then, we didnt send the wonderful ‘creation’ Barfi to the oscars. The Americans would have wondered how intelligent Bollywood was. Looking at the kind of reviews Highway is getting, this should be in for the Indian nomination too. Excellent.

Some years back, I remember the producers of ‘Bheja Fry’ accepting all the rave reviews and thumbs up they were getting from Indian critics and public (the shining public!). When I mentioned that I have seen the original French, I was told – oh that was just the premise, the movie has been Indianised to make it our own, so we need not mention that.

However, I am very choosy when it comes to watching Bollywood movies. After reading this review, I immediately felt the story seed was similar, but thought I will still watch, because of the review. And then later visited the other blog, and I am not sure I should watch, because of many many different reasons and past experiences. Above all, I hate the Indianization, I dont mind a scene by scene copy that much , as it gives us a chance to watch our performers and it is interesting. But Indianisation is terrible often.

My wife pushed me to go for Barfi (she heard great things from her N.Indian colleagues), and within the first 30 minutes we both were sure what a terrible way of hotchpotch -ing it was and it kept on improving till the end. But I was more shocked by the positive review that movie got and had a relief only when I heard it wont represent India in the oscars.

Today at the gym, I mentioned the similarities to a film guy and he said he wasnt surprised. This directors earlier movie was also an ‘inspiration’ – Rockstar. I didnt know about that, I havent seen that one too.

Rajesh,chill out dude, there are worse things that could happen, like barfi winning an oscar, hell if tarantino can win best screenwriter for copying everything from spaghetti western to samurai movies, why not Barfi!

I think Imtiaz is the most feminist of cinema makers in B’wood today, which I find quite endearing because I get the feeling he did not set out to be one in the first place. And what is with his men who get to talk so little and yet end up saying so much more than the women who get all the lines! Also, I found it a little wierd that Veera doesn’t once talk about her impending wedding while she blabbers away everything else. For the incurable romantic in me, it would add some sense of longing and jealousy to what felt was a lack of romantic scenes. I have personally found most of the criticism of this movie just for the sake of it, primarily because I feel this is one of those movies where we can talk about so much of what is there than what isn’t. The part with the child actors felt quite manupulative to me too but maybe that is too strong a word, but given how much he wants us to feel most of the scenarios, it felt forced having these kids go cute on us. I know exactly how you felt when you say the air became cleaner when you walked out after seeing the movie. In recent times, every time I watch a B’wood movie, and I dont watch that many, I haven’t seen a Khan movie in years, the last one was Talaash, I get a sense of being cleansed away a little each time by the years of bad bad cinema we were subjected to in the 90’s and afterwards.

Saihariharan wrote: “Thanks for not referencing a Classic or World movie in this review which half of us would never even have heard of leave alone watching it.”

Do you not want to expand your cinematic worldview? Do you just want to hear about movies you’ve already seen or heard of? I love discovering new movies and filmmakers with which I wasn’t previously acquainted. I think Indian viewers especially need to get out of the Indian cinema bubble. I figure if you are reading someone like Rangan, you want to get more out of his reviews than “should I see such-and-such movie this weekend?”

Of course Highway is nowhere close to a perfect film. But it is impossible not to be affected by the trajectory of the lead characters There is a core of truth and honesty that gets to us all, It is instructive to compare this with a films like Raavan with its obsession with surface gloss and prettiness, instead of delving into human psyche and character development and one can recognise with a sigh of regret, where Mani si going wrong, terribly, terribly wrong.

@Rajesh: I apologize. I came on too strong in the comment. I didn’t mean to disparage you in any way – I just meant to say that the typical chase/romance film has several tropes, which you listed there in your comment. Much like MANK, I wasn’t reminded of The Chase while watching Highway at all (and I’ve seen both). I did associate it with a lot of Tere Naal Ho Gaya, because my brain works in weird ways. The point being – there’s a difference between embracing the tropes of a typical chase film (that this film does, and so does The Chase), and actually plagiarising an entire film. What Barfi did is lift entire scenes (that were so incongruous with the rest of the film) from The Notebook. It didn’t even “Indianize” in the way your were suggesting – they were EXACTLY the same. Down to the translated dialogue. That’s plagiarism.

As for this film, I must say I wasn’t too impressed with it. But I didn’t quite read the film as several here have suggested – Kutty, and Baradwaj himself. I’m definitely going again with a couple of friends – this might just be the sort of film that grows on you as you watch it.

And re: the “plot is just a clothesline” comment, I’m not entirely sure I follow either. I don’t think it can be applied to all sorts of films. I think Nolan’s films, for instance, are all about the plot. While a Harmony Korine film (which I can never get used to) is all about the moments.

But then again, in Mani Ratnam films, the things that stick with you are moments and dialogues – like in Raavanan. The plot is something we all know, I suppose. Here too, that was the impression I got – but I don’t know… the moments just didn’t stick for me.

MANK : In all honesty, I am not clued into the technological aspects of movies and therefore not qualified to answer the first part of the question. But that said, while the locations were as exotic as in Rockstar, the images weren’t as flashy and showy (though personally I thought Rockstar deserved those dreamy visuals). So, they were more integrated into the movie.

With regards to the climax, while I agree with you that she neded that closure, it could have been in a more restrained, sarcastic tone (like the brief part with the uncle) and had less hand wagging and screeching.

@aurora.. No worries at all. Ever since discussion boards originated in the web, I have got matured enough to not assume some one is angry or happy, just by reading a comment, as we might all be discussing this quite differently, if we were looking face to face.

It is quite normal that we may not be reminded of an original, immediately when we are watching a new movie. I didnt think at all about Gucca when I watched Amen, nor about Duel while watching that stupid scene from Neelakaasham…chuvanna bhumi…But this can happen only on later thoughts. Here, on reading the review The Chase came to mind immediately and hence my first comment.

I think, we are ourselves spoiling our film industry, by letting them get away with their ‘creativity’, being soft on them.

One doesnt have to make a complete scene by scene version to be called a copy cat. You give money to most young professionals and show them an old movie, they can make an original looking new version out of it, which would even look like a big improvement, if at all anybody notices the similarity. It is still copying – big or small, at least for me.

I am looking at lots of young directors and assistant directors and writers buying international movie cds – in large numbers – from my friends cd shop,here in Kochi. When they make the payment, they would make a small request – please dont tell anybody eh –..

At the same time, there are also quite intelligent adaptations like we saw in the Malayalam movie – Mumbai Police. The heroes character was taken from Brokeback Mountain, and story was patched out of the Bourne series movies. But it was impossible for anybody to make this out. I was told about this by one young actor from the movie itself. If he had not told this, I would have never realised it.

And by the way, Barfi was not just from one film. In fact, it had scenes taken from movies from Hollywood to Korea, a real hot mix.

@Kutty: it could have been in a more restrained, sarcastic tone (like the brief part with the uncle)

Oh actually , i was alluding to this part when i talked about her well suited acting., yes if you were pointing towards her final breakdown and screaming of Mahabir’s name and all that , yeah you are right, she did look uncomfortable there.Eventhough i liked her performance over all (Mainly because i didnt expect a performance of this caliber from her after SOTY) As somebody pointed out , her performance is sort of a mixed bag, she really scored well in those great scenes, but not so good in others.

You know there is always a thin line dividing things like inspiration, copying , paying homage etc and perhaps you cannot generalize about these things.I guess each one of us have a POV about it, so you are entitled your opinion as i am to mine.As i said before , there is no 100% originality in art and the artistic community prosper by a healthy give and take. So john ford inspires,Kurosawa,Kurosawa inspires Sergio leone , leone in turn inspire Tarantino and Tarantino today inspires a whole bunch of directors world over . Now what if leone more or less ripped of Yojimbo to make Fistfull of dollars. that does not diminish the greatnss of Leone as a filmmaker of such greats as Good bad and ugly, once upon time in west\america etc.I do consider Imtiaz Ali in a similair way. he’s definitely not some lazy hack (say like sanjay gupta or sajid khan) who just blindly copies it and shouts about its originality. This is a densely plotted multi layered work and you can really feel the passion and the hard work of the maker all throughout the film. i am no one to ask you to watch a film, but try to see it and if you still stick to your opinion , then its fine with me.

BTW , i am surprised that you liked Mumbai police. i thought that the gay twist in the movie was just a ploy to make what otherwise would have been routine into something worth talking about. 🙂

When I was a college-going teen, I used to think about ‘Inspiration’ in arts the same way as some critical folks here feel. Any resemblance between two movies was enough to make me seethe and accuse one of the movies as a Copy cat. But, over time I have become more philosophical about these matters.

What is originality any way? Can an artist not be influenced by what he see, what he reads, what he experiences? An artist is not a blank slate. How can he stop himself from being influenced by what he admires? The question really is whether the artist when he creates something– which while inevitably be influenced by the art that came before him– also adds something of his own to the final creation. To me, movies like barfi satisfy that criteria. Yes, Barfi had lots of scenes ‘inspired’ by numerous other movies, but the final product felt so satisfying, so organic. The movie never felt like a hastily put together patchwork. The effort in each scene was evident. The music was heavenly. The performances were top notch. And in the end, all said and done, it moved me. That really is the litmus test of good art. Did it move you? Rest is all academics.

“There’s rarely a way to compliment a director for trying without it seeming both condescending and like foreshadowing a lengthy exegesis of their film’s failure. But it is important to note that Imtiaz Ali is not some run-of-the-mill hack, and that when he goes awry, it’s from having tried something interesting that didn’t work, rather than trotting out shopworn banalities. There’s a lot to like in Ali’s latest, “Highway,” which is a gorgeously assembled, ambitious piece of work, although it doesn’t coalesce into a holistically successful film.”..”For, whatever else can be said about it in terms of it working or not working, “Highway” is a kind of film there should be more of: an impeccable display of craft, with both a brain and heart, that tries something new. Its peaks are wonderful; the one among which not yet mentioned being “Pataka Gudhi,” the song immediately post-interval, the proverbial “good A.R. Rahman song,” which textually coincides perfectly with Veera’s first realization of her complete freedom from her stultifying home life. If not for the film’s tendency to drift off into the ether to the complete loss of all its momentum and purpose, and for the horribly awkward conclusion, “Highway” might be a very good movie indeed. Instead, it’s an inconsistent, if intermittently splendorous, work. There are, to be perfectly clear, far worse things in life. ” Danny Boyes, Roger Ebert.com

“Mr. Ali’s story, though, wanders too long and too far, sometimes coming off like a forced mash-up of “It Happened One Night” and “Patty Hearst.” No wonder the film can’t sustain a tone, wavering between realism and Bollywood hokum.” Rachel Salltz, The New Yok Times

“Tied up and gagged in the back of a colorful truck, Veera at first seems in grave danger, but she soon turns the situation around to a Ransom of Red Chief scenario in which her unpredictable, self-centered behavior drives everyone to distraction, or at least leaves the gang open-mouthed. ” Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter

“Aside from a half-hummed song and a spirited solo roadside dance by Bhatt, Rahman’s evocative songs function mainly as inner voices conveying the characters’ unspoken emotions, while their impromptu dialogue (minimal on his part, run-on on hers) attests to their growing familiarity and ease. “Highway” benefits greatly from Ali’s improvisational approach to every aspect of the production.” Ronnie Scheib, Variety

“No one entering this commercial Bollywood picture would expect a fiercely gritty portrayal of class conflict, but the degree to which Highway candies up Veera’s slumming toward freedom feels so fundamentally out of touch with the realities of poverty that it skirts into offensiveness.” Zaachary Wigon, Village Voice

Do we ever learn the details of Mahabir’s past or is it just alluded to? It may have been wonky subtitling but I was confused by the scene where he says something to the effect of what rich men do to poor men’s wives.

Rajesh: Ever since discussion boards originated in the web, I have got matured enough to not assume some one is angry or happy, just by reading a comment, as we might all be discussing this quite differently, if we were looking face to face.

Words to be framed in gold. If only people would ask what the writer meant before assuming the worst and spewing forth lava…

Vivek Gupta: Thanks for that comment. Will steal a thought or two for a piece I’m doing for this weekend 🙂

Sam: Well, his entire past isn’t shown, but we do learn why he hates the rich and what the cause of his trauma is — it’s in that long speech he gives in the second half.

@Mank – I am not a puli or fish at all my friend. Thanks to my work (who pay) I go to a big gym in Kochi, which is inhabited by many big shots and happening people. During my time, there are more than a few aspiring small actors, directors and writers around. Am 40, luckily still athletic and am very intense with my work out, so I do get a smile from one or two of these aspirers, inspite of my shyness and being extremely ‘quite’ around. But its been more than 7 years in this gym, so the old timers do have some acquaintance. (I think they may not show this acquaintance outside the gym) 🙂

Actually, there are more writers and directors hanging around in my office building – which is on the Marine drive, good place to write in this city – , there are many apartments which are often hired by film guys and its funny to see them coming down to the cd shop downstairs.

The young actor is in Mumbai police in a prominent role (!), also in some other films after that. He seems to be getting more and more roles now. (dont think its appropriate for me to name him here) I dont rate Mumbai Police highly, but when I heard about the inspiration, I thought that was very intelligent.

@Brangan – Thanks sir. Actually I do more discussions on football, and sometimes its like a war there, Club football is like a religion/drug. Movie discussions are very quite.

@Vivek, a heartfelt ‘thank you’! I have seen both ‘originals’ and the ‘inspired works’ and have sometimes been moved more by the ‘inspiration’ than the original. Finally, it all boils down to what you said about it – does it move you?

I also agree about Barfi; the whole ‘copied’ part was all of 13 minutes perhaps. It does not take away from the rest of the film, which was made well.

At the end of the day, I’d like to see a good film, a well-made film, and applaud the hard work that went into its creation. (Obviously not talking about Sajid Khan and his ilk, whose movies are a joke perpetrated on the audience.)

@Rajesh, or i should rather call you chettan (now that you have confessed youre 40 🙂 ),never thought there were so many advantages of going to gym in kochi apart from the obvious ones.Anyway dont blindly believe everything that they say , these guys are more show offs than you can imagine.BTW , i didnt know kochi had become such a hot bed for film writers. Is this the new generation guys? 🙂

Cocktail was not at all regressive. We have had a long discussion on this on this very blog. I think it featured a very progressive depiction if its two heroines, one indulged in pre-marital sex and one in extra-marital sex; and there is no value judgment on this either by the hero or the director.

@Mank, for me these are not really advantages, believe me. I want to finish my workout in 30-40 minutes and hurry back, so any chatting in between is an issue for me.

But of course, the Mumbai Police info was nice. You can also overhear them talking a lot – true to be taken with salt. And these guys have always ‘crowds’ around and they chat around a lot.

Really, most Malayalam movies seem to be shaping up in and around Kochi. Today, just a few hours back, when I was getting back to office after a tea break, see who walks into the lift – Lal Jose. If we were alone, I would have asked him, how did he manage to see ‘Jean de Florett’ – the French movie from which he must have taken the thread for Maravathoor Kanavu – in those days, and why he didnt make the movie really like the original (as it is a brilliant story), instead of only using the thread.

Some days before I saw John Paul. Often there is somebody around in this building.

I guess, there should be more people in another building, few meters away, as its more posch and new. Most film guys have apartment in that building.

If you havent, please try to watch Jean de florette and Manon de sources – beautiful cinema

Thank you for the Imtiaz Ali’s post-film chat link; very taken that he didn’t want to showcase one bad-guy-uncle… ‘only because it’s not his story… we don’t get to know his backstory’. Rather heartening to find a nuanced director in the abundant advertisement/nepotism/rhinestone in the rough….Bollywood world. I’d appreciate a heads-up of promising directors/their works since you’re more aware of their existence than me (even if it’s only available on some you tube channel).

@Rajesh:‘Jean de Florett’ – the French movie from which he must have taken the thread for Maravathoor Kanavu

Brother , i didnt know that either. How they hell did you come by that info ?.I thought it was similar to kottayam kunnachan whiich was adapted from a muttattu varky novel. Well the movies that you mentioned does sound appetising.Would definitely try watch those films.

I glanced through your review just after you wrote it… And read the last line and thought this must be something…

And after watching the movie, I so concur… !

Sometimes, nothing matters… the words you write describing the movie, what were the intentions of the director behind the scenes, is the content correct, does it make sense ? The movie as an experience takes a little bit of you from you and you leave with movie with it inside you now…

Nonetheless, reading your review now after watching leaves me unsatisfied…. like it wasnt enough… But this movie was like that… seems like cannot be encompassed or contained within four paragraphs.

And I am so in love with the female protagonist and consequently with Ms. Alia Bhatt… She was spectacular ! Its almost like I wont care what she does next… this will be sufficient for a long time… After Ship of theseus… this movie is my favourite and will remain.

beautiful sir. i think the way imtiaz keeps his style intact all the time (without going madhur bhandarkar on us) is fascinating. while you mentioned that all his heroes are directionless (abhay, shahid, ranbir, saif and hooda) all his heroines are too free spirited. they can’t be caught and confined. eventually they flee. ayesha takia ran away from her marriage, kareena runs away in the end in fact twice, Deepika leaves her husband, fakhri runs away and alia does not want to go back. the mere contrast of two people… one confused and one totally free spirited makes a fine viewing.

i differ with you on side characters though. Ali’s side characters have always been more colorful. like the taxi driver in jab we met, the hotel guy in jab we met. ranbir’s mentor in rockstar. the taxi driver in chor bazari song of love aajkal. this time around his dependence on side characters was too little. an interesting cop somewhere, a colorful villager at another point would have added more comic relief to the journey.

nonetheless, as you said, mere ungratefulness from us. greed maybe. thank you imtiaz for a fascinating journey.

@Mank – For some time Maravathoor Kanavu was a favourite entertainer (with all its drawbacks) for me. I even felt, that movie urged us to get back to agriculture.

And then, some years back, saw this French classic La Belle Noiseusse, and I was in love with the beauty of Emmanuelle Bearte** and couldnt stop talking about her. Having heard enough, my wife suggested me to watch Jean de florette and Manon de sources. It was some experience, but I remember, after, my sleep was troubled, I kept on thinking, I had seen a similar thing somewhere. It was so disturbing, believe me. Took me more than a week to realise it was Maravathoor Kanavu. In an year or so, Mulla released which was a stupid lift from Tsotsi, and I like to believe the same about MK’s origin too.

If you watch, make sure you watch Jean de florette first, and manon de sources is the second part(which has Ms. Bearte, only her second or third movie). Both were shot in one go and released as two movies.

Ok, I watched these French classics in these decades, when world is in a web. How did Lal Jose watch it in the 90’s, though.

Emmanuelle Bearte, wasnt she in mission impossible as jon voight’s wife ?.If she is , then cant agree with you more on her beauty even though i found her thickly accented english hard to bear 🙂 . And i assume that your wife is also french right ?

This is the most sensible review i ve read about this movie! I m not sure whats wrong with these so called leading Bollywood critics who rated a movie like “Student of the Year” with 3 stars and gave 2 – 2.5 for such an honest movie like Highway!

The first time I watched the movie, portions of it felt like something existing only in the shared psyche of Veera and Mahabir, or possibly in Veera’s imagination alone. It was almost like she made up the whole kidnapping sequence and everything thereafter, and imagined Mahabir’s character up, using him as an instrument of her release. She is almost unnaturally safe through the entire ordeal, ending up with a proverbial rascal with a heart of gold. The part where Mahabir breaks down and cries, the last time I heard that cry of ‘Amma’ was in Dhalapathi (featuring another rascal with a heart of gold).

Also in that post-film chat with Imtiaz Ali there is some talk about animal metaphors – i.e, which character resembles which animal. It was very reminiscent of OAK for me.

as always written mainly written for a southern audience, one with different sensibilites and mindset (the funny key at the end, explaining the most obvious north indian-isms), but nowhere is a film and its craft better and more lovingly analysed. if i watch a movie, i always want to know how brangan saw it, not so much what he thought of it…

I want to have your view on the memory snippets of Randeep that Alia recalls after being refused to heard(when she was injected in the hospital after he was shot)

Why Randeep is alone and may be with some sense of calmness and oblivity to the materialistic world? What does Ali try to depict?

Is it a feeling of guilt on Alia’s part that if she would had left earlier, he had not been shot! I derive this from the attire used, which only flashed before they decide to be together. Or, is it simply some random shots from her memory, recalling him, just before going unconscious? Or she trying to communicate and he being far to hear?
or something else?

sami: I think you are confusing “colourful” with “entertaining.” The side characters have to fit the nature of the film, the journey — you can’t have “entertaining” sidekicks just for fun. I found the characters here wonderfully colourful, right down to the transvestite/transgender.

NMA: Hmmm… I didn’t get that feeling at all.

Siddharth Saxena: Also for a non-Hindi-speaking and non-Indian audience. Just like the Tamil reviews are written keeping in mind the northern audience, I guess — if you’re looking at the KEY section.

I watched in Bangalore. One thing I would welcomed with open hands is SUB-TITLES. These guys spend crores in making the movie. Sub-title would at max cost them in few lakhs (very rare scenario). Why not they afford it ? It will reach more audience.

I am de-lurking after having read this review everyday since it was posted. I have two observations to make:

1) About being thrust into the moment where Veera reveals her tragic past: A couple of scenes earlier, Mahabir rescues her from his gang member who was trying to force himself on her. Very similar to what she’d had experienced as a child at home. That gang member is threatened with severe consequences and asked to leave immediately(I don’t know if he was asked to leave or he left himself, but eventually he left because he’d been told off by Mahabir). This is in stark contrast to her experience at home where her civilized parents forced her to socialize with the perpetrator for years together. Perhaps this incident brought back memories of the past and Veera felt grateful towards Mahabir for standing up for her and protecting her.

2) About Mahabir being the principled bad guy: Again my guess is that he’d seen his mother being abused at the hands of his father and the rich sahebs. He was traumatized by the system that forces women to accept men who want to oppress them sexually and otherwise. Boys who’ve seen their mothers/sisters get abused turn out to be two ways- Either they become abusers themselves or they absolutely abhor it and revolt against it as adults. I have never come across anyone who’s suffered/seen abuse as a fence sitter. So here it almost seems natural that he should protect Veera when she couldn’t do so herself. All his anger on watching his mother suffer could be one the reasons of his outburst.

Thankyou for writing this post. It made the second viewing(in the theater of course!) very pleasurable. Thank you. I will keep coming back to this review for many many years to come.

Neha: Thank you for that comment and for the time you have obviously spent on this review.

oliver: I think they were just flashes of what was going through her mind. Random imagery. Like a dream. You know how something happens and then when you dream about it you get the same people and maybe the same locales but in a surreal and disjointed fashion? It’s something like that.

This is so late, and perhaps will go unnoticed but I just finished watching this movie and had to say something. That sequence you highlight, when Veera and Mahavir find their mountain top nest and Veera cooks dinner… raunte khade ho gaye, BR sahab. I rarely am at a loss for words, but this was just something else. There is no music to this sequence, just the birds, the goats on the nearby hillside, the hollow clink of mud pots. I cannot get over how good Randeep Hooda is in this movie. So glad this was made for him.

And Alia, whatever sins she may go on to commit in Hindi celluloid, I will forgive her all of them for this one heartrending embrace, where you see her grow from child to mother, her limbs awkward, movements choppy and her embrace becomes this thing of comfort and love…

Mr Rangan, I’ve done several searches on your blog, but little has turned up. I was wondering if you’d be interested in writing something about Dil Se itself – you’ve said in several places that you really liked it and you reference it so often. I only watched it recently, and I enjoyed it. I’d be fascinated to know what you felt (feel) about it in detail.

[…] Eden they must be expelled from it. A gunshot rings out (I didn’t notice it at the time but Baradwaj Rangan points out that this gunshot mirrors the one that marked Veera and Mahabir’s initial meeting) […]